CHAPTER
11
His new Adheres made Subar feel as if he were flying. From microsecond to microsecond, the sensors built into the soles scanned and analyzed the surface underfoot, adjusting the malleable material to the appropriate consistency. If the ground was smooth, the soles morphed to provide additional gripping power. If rough, they comported themselves to follow the terrain. If he so wished, on command they would turn virtually frictionless, allowing him to skate-slide at high speed across paved city surfaces. Through the shoes, walking was transformed into a wondrous, exciting experience that was as easy on the feet and legs as it was on the mind. Also an expensive one.
His share of the first sale of the warehouse loot had more than covered the cost of the Adheres, which had to be custom-fitted to his feet. He had enjoyed having the much older shop staff kowtow to his requests almost as much as he delighted in the shoes themselves. Nor were they his only purchase. His pockets and backpack held an assortment of electronic fripperies designed to do little more than entertain. Shoes and gear, of course, had to be kept hidden from his erstwhile family lest they rapidly become “lost.”
The pod’s clandestine rooftop meeting room provided adequate storage space for such needs, though at the rate he and his friends were buying things they were soon going to need to build an annex just to store their purchases. He grinned as he worked his way up the narrow pedestrian access. Having too much stuff was a problem he had never before in his life had to contemplate, and one he was more than ready to deal with.
The bottle stopped him. A casual visitor wouldn’t even have noticed it. The lightweight, self-chilling metal cylinder lay on the side of the winding walkway where it had been discarded. Frowning, he picked it up and examined the label. As with most such beverages, the temperature differential between the liquid contents and the container’s composition also powered the lambent advertising. Now that the bottle was empty, the label had been reduced to unilluminated, flat print.
He knew the brand. A mildly alcoholic brew containing at least two synthetic narcotics imported from offworld. None of his friends drank it. For one thing, it was way too expensive compared with similar-tasting domestic options. Also, it was tart and dry. He and his friends were of an age where tart and dry as yet had no chance when competing against sharp and sweet.
Certainly, given their new-won cred, one of them might have decided to feign sophistication by trying the brew. He could see Chaloni doing so. Alternatively, envisioning the mouth of the bottle sliding between Zezula’s parted lips brought to mind another possibility. But there was no ego boost to be gained by trying it out of sight of everyone else. He would have been less surprised had he found the exotic metal container lying on the floor of the priv place. And he doubted anyone else in this neighborhood could afford to indulge in such a pricey libation.
It just didn’t feel right.
Tilting back his head, he peered up the walkway. The usual cacophony of squabbling and shouting, of infants bawling and pets disputing, filled the air of the crowded residences. What was he so worried about? It was only an empty bottle.
Standing alone in the walkway, hemmed in by battered, quick-poured walls on both sides, he was sure of only one thing: lack of action never brought enlightenment. Feeling at least half a fool, he turned and descended, retracing his steps until he came to a certain half-hidden marginal accessway. Jogging up to its terminus brought him to a rooftop. Climbing higher, he resumed his ascent. Only this time he abjured any designated walkway, alternately shinnying and climbing over walls, windows, porches, and roofs.
Slow and difficult, the climb eventually put him on a roof opposite the building that was crowned by his pod’s improvised hideaway. From there it was a short jump across a twenty-meter drop to the top of the conjoined air recycling and composting ventilation system that served the sprawling apartment complex below. The smell from the latter was a principal reason he and his friends had been able to construct their secret rooftop shelter without interference: nobody and no organization felt inclined to make use of a space that was simultaneously small and stinky, or to object when someone else did.
Keeping low and concealing himself within the forest of moaning vents and massive, concealed blowers, he advanced on the priv place from the rear. Almost immediately, he saw that he had been right to proceed with caution, and was thankful for his new shoes that allowed him to move in near silence. A pair of strangers were standing in front of the entrance. Identical twins, both women were massive, the product of genetic selection and the application of certain hormonal supplements and chemicals. Their faces were as pale and as rough as the raised patterns of bumps that adorned their bare forearms. As he looked on, one of them took a small inhaler from a pocket and sucked out a smile.
Heart pounding, his breath coming at shorter and shorter intervals, he worked his way around toward the back of the hideaway. High up in the crude, jury-rigged lavatory there was a small window that served as a vent in the absence of proper plumbing. It was usually kept open. Anyone engaged in business within could look out at a patch of sky unmarred by grungy construction or the fetid exhalations of surrounding structures. From the rooftop one could peer down inside and, if the inner door was ajar, into the single room that constituted the priv place itself.
The screaming and crying he heard as he approached should have made him turn and run. The sounds were truly bone chilling, both because of their timbre and because he could identify who was uttering them. But he could no more flee from the vicinity of that former place of refuge without trying to steal a look inside than he could have closed his eyes in the presence of Zezula’s nakedness.
She was there, too, though fully dressed. Peering cautiously through the open slot of the vent window, he could see her seated on one of the battered old lounges on the far side of the main room. Her hands were behind her. When after a minute or so she failed to show them, he assumed they were bound. It was the same with Missi, who was seated next to her.
A large, thickset man was confronting them. He was talking, though Subar couldn’t make out what he was saying over the loud throbb music that was being played—to blanket the area with sound, not to provide atmosphere—and the constant sobbing and bawling of the two girls. That in itself was unsettling. Though Missi was known to lose it at the mere sight of an abandoned puper, Subar had never seen Zezula cry. Having always thought of her as having a compassionate heart sheltered behind a wall of duralloy, it was traumatic to see her weeping and shuddering as violently as her far more demonstrative friend.
Moving closer and leaning to one side changed the angle of view into the room. That was when he saw the alien. Tall and absurdly slim, with ridiculously long arms and hands that ended in half a dozen fingers apiece, it stood between the lounge and the talking stranger and the doorway. Subar found himself fascinated by the high tapering ears that shifted slowly to point in different directions like furry scanning antennae.
The alien’s appearance was almost as mesmerizing as the body draped across one of its shoulders. As Subar looked on, it proceeded to dump this burden on the floor of the priv place at the girls’ feet. They looked down at it, recognized it immediately, and resumed screaming all over again. Zezula did not move, but in spite of her bound wrists Missi kept trying to kick her way backward over the lounge. Or dig into its depths—Subar couldn’t be sure which. What he could be certain of was the identity of the corpse. He had to look hard at it, though, because it had been—altered. Unlike the girls, he didn’t scream, but he did stop breathing for a moment.
It was Chaloni. Or rather, something that had once been Chaloni.
Death was no stranger to Subar, or to anyone who had grown up in Alewev. But there were all kinds and ways of death, from the accidental to the natural, from the premature to the premeditated. Among the later, amateurishness of execution usually dominated. What had been done to Chaloni was different. It showed every indication of having been carried out in a manner that was slow, professional, and merciless. It not incidentally explained how his killers had found their way to the secret meeting place. Before he had expired, Chaloni had told them. Chaloni had probably told them everything they wanted to know, and more besides.
The gang leader’s body was naked. It was also missing more than clothes. The work had been carried out slowly and with care. Even to Subar’s young eyes, which were inexperienced in such matters, it was clear that a certain amount of time had been expended. Too mesmerized to run and too horrified to turn away, as he examined the crumpled corpse from the vantage point of the high bathroom window he found himself surprised that so much of a person could be removed while still leaving the basic shape intact. There was also a lot less blood than might have been expected, no doubt because the bulk of it had been drained off earlier. He could not recall where he had heard the hoary old expression dying by inches. He did not know what an inch was, but the pithy phrase had stuck with him nevertheless.
As he looked on, the tall, slender alien disappeared from view. The creature reappeared a moment later wrestling a naked, bound figure in front of him. Or her. Knowing nothing of the furry, high-eared species, Subar was unable to sex it. Despite his lack of clothing the new prisoner, however, was immediately familiar. Dirran struggled futilely against his bindings. They were causing him considerable discomfort, as were the neat, even strips of skin that were hanging from his face and other parts of his body. His appearance was shocking enough to stop the girls’ screaming.
Leaning forward, the large muscular man began yelling first into Zezula’s face, then Missi’s. Subar reconsidered. Maybe Chaloni hadn’t told his captors everything. Or despite his captors’ ghoulish professionalism, maybe the gang leader had been inconsiderate enough to expire before babbling everything he knew. Otherwise, why were Dirran, Zezula, Missi, and Sallow Behdul still alive? Why hadn’t they already been skyed screaming down the road Chaloni had taken?
A moment later, the subjects of his wondering were reduced by one as the alien placed a huge hand over each side of Dirran’s head, lifted him off the floor, and gave a single sharp, athletic twist. Subar did not hear the snap. He didn’t have to, because Dirran was now looking directly back at the alien while the rest of his body continued to face forward. Exhibiting an air of complete indifference, the creature tossed the now lifeless body onto the couch. It landed between Zezula and Missi, who despite their bonds did their frantic, panicky best to edge away from it.
This time the big man yelled first at Missi before switching to Zezula. A hard, open hand began to rise and descend, rise and descend. A helpless Subar could only watch and grind his teeth. Hair flying, Zezula’s head snapped back and forth until the man stopped; then it dropped forward onto her chest. Every muscle, every ligament and tendon in Subar’s body felt stretched tight enough to snap. There wasn’t a damn thing he could do.
He needed a weapon. But even if he had one, he realized, using it would mean going up against four professionals and trying to take them out without getting any of his friends hurt in the process. He was neither that good nor that experienced a shot.
More than at any previous time in his young life, he felt completely helpless.
Picking up the unconscious Zezula, the alien effortlessly tossed her onto the shoulder that had previously been occupied by Chaloni. The man who had conducted the interrogation gripped the sobbing Missi by one arm. Ungently yanking her off the couch, he shoved her toward the doorway. Turning back, he vanished briefly from view before returning with a more thoroughly bound Sallow Behdul. The big youth’s expression was blank as he stumbled after Missi. He looked like someone already dead who was only continuing with the motions of living because he had been ordered to do so.
It was at that moment, making a last check of the priv place, that the interrogator happened to glance up as well as back. His eyes met Subar’s. Both sets of opposing oculars widened simultaneously.
The big man shouted as Subar bolted. Absolute terror lent extra energy to his legs and feet. Behind him he could hear more shouts and the sounds of heavy feet pounding on rooftop. A glance backward showed the Amazonian twins in hot pursuit. One was aiming a device in his direction.
As he made the leap across to the next building, something seared his right arm as if it had come in contact with a heated metal bar. Looking down, he saw wisps of smoke rising from his skin. The smell of his own burning flesh would have made him gag, if he’d had the time to squander on such things. The voices behind him commanded him to stop. Remembering the sight of Chaloni and what had been done to Dirran, he knew that his chances for survival would be better if he simply threw himself off the nearest roof.
He was small but quick. In the teeming, festering warren that was Alewev, those were advantages. Down a chute he went, barely bothering to thrust out hands and feet to slow his descent. Then up a serviceway, across a bridge of parallel power conduits, down yet another gap between two buildings, and out onto a side street. No one there even bothered to look in his direction. Like poverty and powerlessness, flight and pursuit were part and partial of everyday life in the district.
The rooftop meeting room wasn’t the only covert location known to the members of the rapidly disintegrating pod. In addition to their collective hidey-holes, each of them had his or her own special, private places. Out of breath, strength, and adrenaline, Subar finally threw himself into one of several service bins that were bolted to the back of a large refuse recycler. Inside the bin, the nonstop hum and rattle of the city service unit onto which it backed was deafening. But no one could hear him here, or pick up his heat signature, or smell him out. Huddled back against the bin’s interior wall, face pressed between his knees and arms around both, he waited for a massive hand, be it human or alien, to wrench the door aside and fish him out.
Time passed. An hour, then another. He dared to think that he might have shaken his pursuers. He couldn’t go home, he knew. Chaloni might have spilled that information along with everything else. With his home and family possibly under surveillance and the priv place violated, he had nowhere to go.
Alone in the gloom, safe for now and having nothing else to do, he finally allowed himself to cry.
He awoke with a start in the dark, the hidden hulk of the recycling machinery rumbling smoothly behind him. Wanting to scream, he knew enough not to. Once he’d rubbed his already sore eyes as clear as he could manage, he slowly opened the bin door a crack and peered out.
The serviceway was empty, the ground damp. It had rained while he had been asleep. There was no sign of the grim-faced twin giantesses, the muscular interrogator, or the frighteningly silent alien. Pushing open the bin door, he climbed out. It was still dim in the artificial canyon formed by the surrounding structures, but an irregular smear of orange-brown sky showed overhead. A glance at his unduly expensive and absurdly fashionable new communit indicated that it was a few minutes before eight in the morning. Exhausted and terrified, he had slept through the remainder of the previous day and on through the night.
He stood there, alone, rubbing his eyes. He could not go home. Depending on how much Chaloni had told his captors before he died—and he had probably told them a great deal, Subar surmised—they might be waiting for him in its vicinity. Secreted in a hallway, perhaps, waiting to snatch him as he wandered in, disappearing him before anyone noticed. Knowing his parents as he did, Subar doubted they would spending much time grieving over his disappearance. Nor could he try to obtain supplies from the priv place: that was certain to be under surveillance.
They would be after him, he knew. People like that didn’t let insults pass. They would be relentless in their pursuit, not stopping until they had accounted for every one of those who had boosted the warehouse. He had nowhere to go and no one on whom he could unload his misery. Except, maybe one…
The last time he could remember being as relieved when Ashile responded to a communication of his was when that peculiar tall offworlder had saved him from the thranx and the police. He met her in the usual place on the roof of her building, though not before watching her from hiding as she stood alone and searched for him. There was no reason to suppose that Chaloni or any of the other pod members knew about the place, or even the casual friendship, but he was taking no chances because he knew he wouldn’t get any.
When he finally stepped out of hiding, she caught sight of him with a mixture of bewilderment and irritation.
“There you are! What kind of game are you playing today, Subar? I don’t think I like…hey, take it easy!”
He half guided, half dragged her back into the cluster of service conduits where he had concealed himself. Her attitude changed the moment she got a good look at his face.
“You said it was an emergency, Subar, but I didn’t realize—”
He cut her off, everything that had happened to him the previous week spilling out in a torrent of words. She listened closely to all of it, not even nodding, just letting him gush until he concluded with a description of the dreadful events of the preceding day. When he finally finished, she reached out and tentatively put a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“What are you going to do?” she asked as compassionately as she could.
“I don’t know.” His eyes were haunted with the memory of the horrors he had witnessed yesterday morning. “I can’t go home; they’re liable to be watching the whole building. The bin-hide I used last night is safe, I think, but there’s nothing there. It’s just an empty box. I have nowhere else to go.”
She hesitated. She had never seen him like this. Typically cocky and fearless, respectful of that awful shatet Chaloni but not afraid of him, suddenly Subar looked…he looked…
He looked his age.
She heard herself replying before her thoughts were fully formed, and she was almost as shocked at them as he was.
“You could stay with me.”
He gaped at her. “I mean,” she continued hastily, “I could hide you in my building. There are storage places, rarely visited and not at all full, that are climate-controlled. I could bring you food, and you have your communit for information and ’tainment.” Growing enthusiasm replaced her initial uncertainty. “You could hide here for as long as necessary.”
The look he gave her was one she had not seen before; its most prominent component was confusion. “That might work,” he finally commented, not bothering to thank her. “For a while, anyway.” He nodded, as much to himself as to her. “At least it would give me a base of operations.”
Now it was her turn to show uncertainty. “Operations? Operations for what? Staying alive?”
Gradually he was starting to look and sound a little more like his old self. “I can’t just crawl into a hole and aestivate like some dumb squinad,” he told her, referring to a local species of vermin that plagued every housing structure in the district. “They took Zezula and Missi and Behdul away alive. For sure to ask them more questions, if only for corroboration of what Chaloni told them. Maybe”—he swallowed hard—“for other things as well. I can’t just forget about them.”
“Yes you can,” she snapped. But his thoughts were already streaking ahead.
“Sallow Behdul’s big, but he’s useless in a situation like this. I wouldn’t be surprised if the sahongs kill him out of hand. The girls—they’ll at least talk to the girls. For a while.”
“They’re not your problem, Subar.” She did not like the turn their conversation had taken.
He met her gaze. “They’re my friends, Ash. I have to do something. I have to at least try. With Chal and Dirran dead, I’m the only hope they’ve got.” His voice dropped. “I don’t know what the people who have them are going to do to them, but one thing I know for sure: they’re not going to let them go. I’ve got to try.”
She stepped back in exasperation. “‘Try’? Try what? This isn’t an entertainment vit, Subar, and the people you’ve described to me aren’t acting. They killed Chaloni and Dirran, they’ll kill you, too. What are you going to do? Tell the police?”
He shook his head violently. “Worst thing I could do. People like this, if they get word the authorities are looking into it, they’ll just sky Zez and Missi and Behdul out to the Torogon Straits and dump them into the outgoing current.”
“Then what are you going to do?” She softened her tone. “You’re a great guy, Subar. I—I like you. But you’re just a kid. A seriously tough kid,” she added quickly, seeing the expression on his face, “but there’s just one of you. I’ll help you as much as I can, but that doesn’t include walking into the house of some semi-legal trading family, or whoever’s behind this, with guns flaring. I know my limits, and you should, too.” Moving forward, she once again rested her hand on his shoulder. “The more you talk like this, the more I keep seeing you dead, and I—I’d rather not.”
He looked up at her, then nodded slowly. “You’re right. If I’m going to do anything for Zez and the others I need help. Serious help.”
“You don’t know any serious help,” she told him. “You never went illegal enough to make friends with those kinds of people. You don’t know anyone anymore. Except me.”
“No.” He stood up so suddenly that it took her aback. “I do know somebody. I don’t know if he’ll help, but all he can do is refuse. That is, if he’s even still on Visaria.”
She frowned doubtfully. “Subar, who are you talking about? You don’t know any…” She broke off, remembering. “Are you talking about that strange offworlder you introduced me to? The one we escorted back to his hotel?”
He nodded, a glint of excitement in his eyes. “Flinx, his name was. Yes.”
Ashile eyed her friend as if he had lost not only his companions, but his mind, too. “He’s just one offworlder. Not all that much older than you and me, either. He didn’t strike me as the soldier type, and he doesn’t dress like a Qwarm.”
“You don’t know him,” Subar insisted, conveniently avoiding the fact that he didn’t know Flinx, either. “I saw him do—certain things. To Chal, and Dirran, and Behdul. I don’t know exactly what he did or how he did it.” He struggled to remember. “He said something about letting them taste dark water, whatever that means. If he can do something like that to the people who are holding Zez and the others, they might have a chance. If we can just break them free, they can go into hiding, too. And,” he finished, “the offworlder said that his pet was poisonous, remember?”
“Tchai, I remember.” She was more than a little exasperated. “You’re going to go up against the people who slaughtered Chaloni and Dirran and are still after you with the aid of one skinny longsong? And his ‘pet’?”
Subar was adamant now. “If he’s still on Visaria, yes. And if he agrees to help. Which,” he was compelled to add disconsolately, “he very well might refuse to do.”
“That’ll determine if he has any sense,” she shot back, “or if, like you, he’s lost it all.”
Looking as helpless as he felt, Subar spread his hands imploringly. “I have to at least make an attempt, Ash. These scrawn, they’ve taken my friends.” He eyed her intently. “Will you come with me? This Flinx, I got the feeling he liked you.”
“Tnai,” she muttered sulkily, “I’ll come with you. I don’t know why, but I will. Maybe because I’ve always had a soft spot for dumb, abandoned animals.”
Coming toward her, he gripped her upper arms. His grasp was firm and confident, his expression grateful, his tone gentle. “I knew I could count on you, Ash. You’re a good friend.” Leaning forward, he kissed her—on the forehead. It was a thankful, respectful, chaste kiss. She wanted to hit him.
While he waited below, concealed near the main entrance to her building, she mumbled an excuse to her parents about leaving to visit friends for a couple of days. Her mother barely looked up from her in-home work to acknowledge her daughter’s declaration. Stuffing a few essentials into a backpack, she made her way downstairs. As the lift descended past other overcrowded floors, she found herself pondering.
What in the world was she doing? She could get herself killed. Or Subar could. She told herself that she was doing it for a good friend. A seriously good friend. Who was planning to risk himself for his friends.
A series of foul words she would never have used in public slalomed through her mind, tainting her thoughts. “His friends.” She knew on whose behalf he was risking himself. That apathetic slut Zezula. He was always talking about her, always going on about how she looked, how she moved, how she talked, how she dressed, how she…
What a very great pity, Ashile thought as she exited the building and rejoined Subar, that the brutal unknown assailants had chosen to take out their anger on Chaloni instead of his worthless girlfriend.